We've seen for a long time that it isn't that our clients don't know what to do to be healthy and come to their ideal weight. If a health challenge persists or that extra weight stays on, it's more that they don't do what they know. And we all do this in different areas of our lives. It's part of what life brings us to learn to grow and expand in being who we are.
So, what drives that habit of overriding what we know, overriding the impulses we get from the intelligence of our bodies? In our lives, and what we see in clients, it's the desire for the immediate relief and mood lift we can get from food.
To understand this more I see that in my life I see everything through the filters of my conditioned thinking. Thinking that's driven by deep seated beliefs about how I have to be to be accepted and loved. Like my story from last week about how I reacted to Connie telling me there was peach juice on the counter.
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Often, when I feel tense or anxious, I know I can calm the waters with a dopamine fix from food. And I can do this with whole foods, too, not just high-fat fast foods or a sugary cookie.
Dopamine is stimulated by sugar, oil and salt, and when we have been eating WFPB SOS-free, there isn't much sugar, oil or salt in what's around the house. But our bodies adjust to that, so when we haven't had large amounts of these things, so common in the Standard American Diet, our bodies give us the same amount of dopamine from a large bowl of peaches and cooked grain with some almond milk.
The dopamine cycle evolved while our species was eating WFPB without any added sugar, oil or salt to the meals. So we are designed to be sensitive to even small amounts of natural sugars, fats and salt contained in whole foods. The difference with us today is that there isn't the natural restriction of quantity that existed in our ancient past. So we can turn to healthy foods for the soothing of dopamine by eating more quantity.
So, how can we short circuit a habit of turning to food to relieve some tension or negative emotion?
As we've seen more clearly that our experience is always a reflection of our thinking, in other words, we're always feeling our current thinking, we see we have the ability to reduce the tension and negative emotions in our lives by looking at this understanding.
We do this by seeing that my thinking that I shouldn't make a mistake, or I shouldn't upset any one, I need to keep everyone happy, is conditioned thinking. Because of these beliefs I did a lot of people pleasing. And this often contributed to more tension and difficult emotions.
It's my conditioned thinking, the thinking I repeat over and over that comes out of these deep core beliefs (that aren't true, by the way), that distorts how I see what's happening. And from that inaccurate, distorted thinking comes the tension and emotion.
By seeing this, we find ourselves being able to move beyond that inaccurate conditioned thinking, finding freedom from reaching for food for relief. Like we said last week, food is not the problem. When the emotion isn't there, there isn't anything I need relief from. We feel free. When the conditioned thinking that drives the feelings we want relief from don't arise, we short circuit the reaching for food for relief.
We're doing our Juice Cleanse this week, so the recipes are two new fresh vegetable juices. We're loving them.
To your Amazing Health,
Bill and Connie
Beets & Such (Serves 1)
- 1/3 bunch black kale
- ½ English cucumber
- 1½ cups Broccoli tops and stems
- 2 beets
- 2 carrots
- 1 inch piece fresh ginger
- ½ lemon, peeled
- 2 pears
Juicing a Salad (Serves 1)
- ½ head Romaine or leafy lettuce
- 1 stalk celery
- ½ English cucumber
- Handful of sprouts
- Slice of Onion
- 2 or 3 fresh Basil leaves
- 1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper, seeds removed
- 1 Jalapeno, seeds removed
- 3 medium tomatoes
- 2 apples